Thursday, December 6, 2018

New Dock Space Gallery Show Spotlights Work of French Street Artist Jessica Pliez

Assorted monsters, quirky canines, bumble bees with human skulls for heads, two-headed bears, rabbits dragging their own hearts and mushroom-cat hybrids are among the beasties that populate the odd universe of Jessica Pliez, a French street artist who works between photography, drawing, painting and printmaking. Although she draws inspiration from her upbringing (amid the culinary scene) and adult life in Paris, the sights and sounds she describes in her autobiographical text “Balades Parisiennes (Parisian Strolls)” aren’t exactly hallmarks of her imaginative work.

Instead, the melancholy members of Pliez’s mutant bestiary suggest their own poetic narratives to be interpreted by passersby who encounter her curious offerings affixed to walls, street signs, nooks, crannies and corners throughout the City of Lights. While teaching a class in Paris, former San Antonio resident Sean FitzGibbons (who’s currently serving as director of the Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana) came across an exhibition of Pliez’s work and then started noticing it on his own strolls through the city. The result of this chance discovery takes shape this Second Saturday as the new Dock Space Gallery Annex opens its doors for “Balades Parisiennes,” a solo show highlighting Pliez’s print-based street art as well as the mysteriously layered, “fictional” self-portraits she shoots on Polaroid film.